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aass_ 'S.A-V3 

Book ILjA 



TOKENS 



OF THiE 



DIVINE DISPLEASURE, 



IN THE LATE 



CONFLAiGRATIONS IN NEW«¥ORK, & OTHEK JUDGMENTa, 



aaa IL ^S t? iB ^'^^IS©* 



•'The wrath of God is revealed from Heavon* against all ungodhness and 
unrighteousness of men." Rom. i. 18. " Our God is a consuming fire." Heb. 
xii. 29. *' He executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppress, 
ed." PsAL. cm. 6. 



BY JAMES R. WILIiSON, D. D. 

lABTOB OF THE COLDENHAM CO NQUEQATION. 



NEW BURGH 



rilKTED ^ HARLES V. COSH MAN 



iP3r>. 






80313 



TOKEI^S 



OF THE 



Bivisffxa Bxss'XiisAS'orRiSi 



&C. &-C. 



In the late conflagrations, which have desolated so large a 
portion of the city of New-York, a severe judgment of Heaven 
has been inflicted on that metropolis. That calamitous event is 
the latest in a series of tokens of the divine displeasure agamst 
this commonwealth. *' Is there evil in the city and the Lord 
hath not done it.?" Such afiiictive dispensations are not 
" some chance that hath happened unto us." Affliction spring- 
eth not of the dust. " God grieveth not willingly, nor afflicteth 
the children of men." If amidst many and abundant demon- 
strations of Jehovah's goodness to this nation, there have been 
painful aud heavy visitations, it is because the sins ot the peo- 
ple have provoked the divine displeasure. It cannot be un- 
profitable to investigate the doings of transgressors, that the 
Christian observer may discover why the God of heaven 
« pleads a controversy" with the land. An humble attempt is 
made to do this in the following pages. rue c 

Soon after the assembling of the Legislature of the fetate ot 
New-York, in January, 1832, a motion was made in the house 
of Asssemblv. to abolish the practice of opening the sessions 
with prayer 'to Almighty God. It had been the practice of 
both houses, soon after they were organized, to elect as Chap- 
lains, all the regular Clergy of the city of Albany, who were 
pastors of congregations, to officiate in rotation, in commenc- 
ing the daily business by morning prayer. For this service, 
all the chaplains together, received as a compensation what 
was equal to the pay of one member of each house, to be dis- 
tributed equally among them. The whole sum annually ap- 
propriated for this purpose, amounted to about seven hundred 
and fifty dollars. To authorize this expenditure a provision 



in 

wai embodied in the revised statutes of the eommonvvGahh* 
The motion to dispense with what was called legislative prayer, 
came from the infidel part of the house, and was followed up 
by a protracted and zealous argument on the part of its friends. 
It was plead that many members did not believe in the duty 
or efficacy of prayer — that they did not attend respectfully 
while the prayer w'as offered up — that not a few absented 
themselves from the house until it was concluded, and that they 
must either do so, or submit to have itnposed on them religious 
services which they did not approve. These arguments were 
drawn from facts. So little reverential deportment in devo- 
tional acts, as in the legislature of New-York, was no where 
else seen. Some members had their hats on, some read news- 
papers, and some engaged in conversation, while the chaplain 
was employed in offering up the morning prayer to God. It 
was a common remark of the clergy, that the disorderly con- 
duct of the members rendered this service rather painful, and 
that in these addresses to a throne of grace, they had little 
freedom. The enemies of the christian religion used also 
other arguments than those drawn from facts. They appealed 
to the genius of the constitution, which they asserted discard- 
ed all religion from civil legislation. They argued that infi- 
dels and believers in the truth of revealed religion, were placed 
on an equal fooling — and that the employing of the ministers 
of religion to pray in the house was a violation of those rights 
of conscience which were guaranteed to deists by the constitu- 
tion. It was said that the people sent them there to make 
laws, not to pray, and tiiat the time of the legislature, which 
ought to be employed in the transaction of the people's busi- 
ness, was uselessly thrown away in prayer. But the argument 
on which they chiefly relied was that the appropriation of the 
people's money to pay chaplains, was unconstitutional, as it 
was a direct support of the christian religion and gave it a 
preference over infidelity; whereas all such preference was 
forbidd(m by the consitution. They insisted that church and 
state were connected by these prayers. 

All these reasonings, if they may be honored with that name, 
were mingled with malevolent insinuations and attacks on the 
religion of .Jesus, as fanaticism, and unworthy of the counte- 
nance of liberal and enlightened men. 

In answer to all these infidel vituperations of Christianity, 
and on behalf of calling on the God of heaven, for his divine 
aid in the business of legislation and his blessing on its acts, 
there was little zeal displayed, and not much power of argu- 



[M 

menl. When the vote was taken, however, out of more than 
one hundred members twenty seven only voted in the infidel 
ranks, and the usual election of chaplains took place. The 
subject was not touched in the senate, where indeed, as thai 
body is smaller and the members graver and more aged, there 
had'always been more respectful attention to the mornmg de- 
votions. 

Petitions from the infidel part of the community were got 
up in various parts of the country, and presented to the legis- 
lature during the same sessions, praying them to abolish legisla- 
tive prayer and all the laws of the state respecting the sanctifi- 
cation of the Lord's day. On these petitions a special com- 
mittee was appointed. These memorials were signed by some 
thousands of the citizens. Near the close of the session the 
committee, to whom they had been referred, presented a long 
report on the subject of prayer in the legislature, leaving un- 
touched the subject of the Sabbath. In this report, the argu- 
ments which had been offered in the course of the preceding de- 
bate, were embodied, and it concluded with ihe recommenda- 
tion of a resolution that the prayer of the petitioners be granted. 
This had been expected from the complexion of the committee, 
and was probably intended, when they were appointed. The 
christian religion was treated with scorn and derision in the 
report, and its votaries represented as misguided fanatics. This 
brought up the question again and produced a considerably 
protracted discussion. The same ground was travelled over 
and the subject treated in the same v/ay. But the dicisioa 
was postponed, and the report with all its sins on its head, 
published, as a part of the legislative proceedmgs, in the jour- 
nals of the state. Such a document, issued under such cir- 
cumstances, is considered by the people, as armed with a 
semi-official authority. It was no doubt designed both to in- 
fluence and test the feelings of the citizens on the topic which 
it discussed. By the ungoldly, it was hailed as a precursor of 
the abolition of the christian religion; while tlie religious part 
of the community regarded, with emotions of sorrow, such an 
indication of the growth of infidelity, thus proclaimed in the 
high places of the land. 

Soon after the opening of the session of the Assembly on 
the following January, 1833, the motion to abolish prayer to 
God was renewed. When the question came to a vote, it was 
found that the number of avowed infidels had increased from 
twenty-seven to forty. The same temper that had been dis- 
played in the former Assembly was manifested io this ; and 



though a majority still voted for the election of chaplains, it 
was thought prayers were disagreeable to the greater part of 
both houses. After a notice had been served on the clergy 
of the city that they had been elected to serve as chaplains, 
a meeting of the city ministers was called ; and upon solemn 
deliberation, it was resolved that they would not accept the offer- 
ed chaplaincy. The vote was unanimous with the exception of 
one Methodist minister. It was perceived that every year, 
the Deists would make the legislature of the state, a theatre 
for the dissemination of their demoralizing and ruinous infidel- 
ity ; while at the same time it was believed that a great major- 
ity of the legislature, were it not for the strong sentiment in 
favour of Christianity in the commonwealth, would much pre- 
fer to have no prayer. 

It soon appeared that this judgment of the irreligion of the 
house was not uncharitable ; for the law of the revised statutes, 
providing for the pay of chaplains was speedily rescinded, only 
nine members voting in the negative. Since that time, the 
voice of prayer has not been heard, in the New- York halls of 
legislation, and by a solemn legislative act, all reliance on the 
God of Israel, for his spirit, aid and blessing in conducting its 
civil affairs, has been cast off, and infidelity has obtained a for- 
mal triumph. Thus is exhibited the painful spectacle, of a 
people greatly prospered in the bounty of Heaven — a people 
who have the oiacles of the living God in nearly every family 
— a people among whom there are thousands of christian 
churches ; such a people proclaiming by their representatives, 
in the face of the nations, that they do not and will not look 
lo the God of Heaven for his favour or protection as a com- 
monwealth. What christian, nay, what pagan nation has ever 
done a deed like this ? " Pass over to the isles of Chittim and 
see ; and send to Kedar, and consider diligently and see if 
there be such a thing : Hath a nation changed their gods, which 
yet are no gods ? But my people have changed their glory, 
for that which doth not profit. Be astonislied O ye heavens 
at this, and be ye horribly afraid, be ye very desolate saith the 
Lord. For my people have committed two great evils; they 
have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hew- 
ed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.'* 
Jer. II, 10, 13. 

The principle promulged in the Nevv-Vork Legislature, 
was carried out in the departments of government. In 1832, 
when the land was tlireatened with an alarming visitation of 
God, the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, pe- 



tiiioned the President of the United States to proclaim a fast, 
that the nation might humble itself before God, and implore 
the divine mercy. He refused to act in the case, and assign- 
ed in substance the same arguments that had been plead in the 
New- York Legislature against prayer. It was not, he said, 
constitutional — it was not accordant with the spirit of the civil 
institutions of the United States, for the chief executive ma- 
gistrate, to call upon the people to humble themselves before 
God. The civil rulers of the land could not as such do hom- 
age to Almighty God, or invite the people to bow down before 
their maker. Individuals could do so ; the church might seek 
the favour of Heaven ; it was all proper, but the nation, in its 
civil capacity, was prohibited from such acts of devotion by 
constitutional barriers. Application, on the same occasion, 
was made by the clergy of Albany to the Governor of New- 
York, requesting the recommendation of a state Fast. They 
also were met by a refusal, and the same reasons assigned — 
the church would be united to the state, by such an act — it 
was not permitted by the constitution. How these reasons 
could be valid in the mouth of the governor of New- York, or at 
least how they could be deemed consistent with other acts of 
that functionary, it was not easy to perceive ; for he and his 
predecessors had annually appointed a day of thanksgiving for 
the state. But it was the fashion of the times, which must be 
obeyed, however pressing the request, and however tremend- 
ous the dreaded calamity. The Mayor of the city of New- 
York, and the corporation of the city of Albany responded to 
these infidel sentiments and at first refused to recommend a 
day of fasting to the citizens of the metropolis and of the cap- 
ital.* 

Thus we have given a brief outline of the sins of public 
functionaries; let us now review the judgments of Jehovah, 
which an enlightened posterity, however the majority of the 
present generation may decide, will consider as inflicted for 
these flagrant acts of dishonour done to his name. 

The winter of 1831 — 2 was unusually severe, and the ap- 
proach of spring alarmingly tardy. The inclemency of the 
season continued, from its early commencement until its ter- 
mination, five weeks longer than its ordinary length. It was the 
opinion of enlightened farmers, who intelligently estimated 
passing events, that the loss of each averaged, at least one hun- 

*After the hand of God was actually laid on them and all were filled with 
consternation, these constitutional scruples were dispensed with, and a day of 
fasting was appointed, by the corporation of Albany. 



dred dollars. This resulted from the greater consumption o{ 
hay and grain, fed to cattle, and from the debilitated, diseased 
state and death of the flocks. In the state of New-York, there 
are about two hundred and fifty thousand farmers, that num- 
ber multiplied by one hundred, makes an aggregate loss, in one 
year, of §25,000,000. The whole sum, appropriated to the 
pay of chaplains was not §800. Days were wasted in proving 
that the constitution forbid the expenditure — that it ought not 
to be made — and that the rights of conscience, the vicegerent 
of God in the soul, foi'bid the appropriation of a few hundred 
dollars to the service of the Almighty. Surely the language of 
Heaven in this dispensation was, " the gold and the silver are 
mine." Few, however, regarded the severe and long winter 
as the doing of God, and still fewer thought it a judgment on 
the nation for any sin. The visitation had a hardening effect 
on a great majority of the people, as those of old by which 
Egypt was smitten, had on Pharaoh. Other tokens of the 
dvine wrath followed, in quick and fearful successsion. There 
were destructive freshets in the rivers, which were swollen 
suddenly to an unusual height, by the rapid melting of the 
snows and by great rains ; so that before the masses of ice 
that had accumulated during a hard and long winter were di- 
minished, they were broken up and borne with destructive 
force down the currents, destroying Airms, and bridges, and 
reducing large portions of the villages to wrecks. In many 
places the embankments of the Hudson and Erie Canal, were 
torn away, so that much time occupied in repairs elapsed, be- 
fore the great trade on that thoroughfare could be resumed. — 
The savages on the western frontier, broke in upon the new 
settlements, killed some of the inhabitants, destroyed much 
property, and compelled thousands to fly in Avant from their 
dwellings. 

In the southern states, especially in South Carolina, a spirit 
of insubordination to the general government, under the name 
of Nullification, threatened the disruption of the union and all 
the horrors of a civil war. As if all these were little, that fear- 
ful scourge of God, the Cholera, invaded the land early in the 
same summer. After having cut off many, by a speedy and 
dreadful death, in Quebec and IMontre.il, it entered the state of 
New-York, and travelled rapidly from Pialtsburgh, by Burling- 
ton, and other villages, to IMechanicsville, within twenty miles 
of Albany. For a while it was there stayed, and shortly, for 
a season, disappeared from the borders of the United Stales. 
The alarm which had been deep and general subsided, and 



[9] 

men, like Agag, the King of Amalek, Said, "surely the bitter- 
nesss of death is past." Like Pharaoh they still hardened 
their hearts and refused to return to the Lord from the error 
of their ways. In the latter end of June, it again made its ap- 
pearance, attacking the city of New-York. It was at this time 
that an attempt was made in the corporation of Albany, to pro- 
cure the recommendation of a fast day. The corporation sat 
to a late hour engaged in the discussion, until the mover per- 
ceiving that there was a majority opposed to the measure, many 
even making it a subject of profane banter, did not press it on 
to a vote. Within a few hours after the government of the 
city had refused to humble itself before God — at three o'clock 
on Tuesday morning — one of the citizens sickened with cho- 
lera and was a corpse before noon. On the afternoon of the 
same day there was another death by this plague in the city. 
These deaths happened on the third of July. The corpora- 
tion had made ample preparations, for celebrating, on the 
fourth, the great national anniversary — there were to be splen- 
did military parades, orations, dinners, toasts, evening revels^ 
and all kinds of dissipation, to which one day every year h 
devoted in this nation. The anticipated joy was turned into 
sadness. All faces gathered blackness, and the stoutest hearts, 
and most hardened sinners quailed with fear. The destroy- 
ing angel was seen standing over the city with his drawn sword 
in his hand, ready to bathe it in the blood of thousands. All 
business was nearly suspended — all thoughts of revelling aban- 
doned — and on the fourth, one of the largest churches in the 
city was crowded to overflowing, with people of all ranks, lis- 
tening to temperance addresses. That day Heaven granted a 
respite — no case of cholera occurred. But it appearad again 
on the fifth. In a few days both the Metropolis and the Cap- 
ital were converted into vast hospitals. The weekly deaths 
amounted to thousands. The course of trade was stopped and 
nearly all other business suspended ; as merchants and other 
strangers were deterred generally from resorting to the cities^ 
Death on his pale horse rode through the land, diffusing over 
its wide extent mourning, lamentation and woe. Philadelphia, 
Trenton, and other cities and numerous villages were visited 
by the destroyer, but the State of New-York suffered more 
severely that summer than any other part of the Union. It 
was estimated that this state, besides the death of many thou- 
sands of her citizens, would have been richer by fifteen mill- 
ions of dollars, had the plague not visited her borders. This 
loss was sustained in consequence of the interruption of trade, 

B 



[ >o 3 

the paupers made by the pestilence, the corrupted stale of the 
atmosphere such that the fruits did not ripen, many thousands 
in the cities spending the greater part of the season in idleness, 
not having employment, as building and other branches of me- 
chanical labour were in great part suspended, and multitudes 
disabled from working. So that that very year in which the ma- 
jesty of Heaven had been insulted in the halls of legislation, by 
arguments against the giving of a part, a very small part, of the 
property of the commonwealth, for the purpose of honoring 
him, the state was made poorer by a sum, falling not much short 
of forty millions of dollars, and by the loss of many thousands 
of her citizens. 

As, however, an abundance still remained of the ample trea- 
sures, which had been replenished by ihe munificence of God, 
and as no famine ensued, few thought of estimating the great 
amount of the loss, and the many said, "the bricks have fallen 
down, we will build with hewn stone." There was no refor- 
mation, but, on the contrary, the wicked became more embold- 
ened and hardened in sin. In the autumn of that calamitous 
year, the presidential election occurred. Faction raged with 
unprecedented violence, and it appeared that the wicked were 
excited, like him of Egypt, to tenfold opposition against the 
God of Heaven, by the judgments, with which they had been 
visited. 

In the summer of 1833 — 4, the plague of cholera continued 
his march, " filling with bodies dead," many parts of the south- 
ern and western states, while in the northern and eastern sec- 
tions of the union, some respite was given. 

In late events, we have abundant and painful evidence, 
that the judgment of the pestilence, was not better improved 
in the southern states, than it had been in the northern. The 
great sin of ilie south — the fruitful parent of a thousand other 
immoralities — is x\egro Slavery. Without doubt nine tenths 
of the people of the non-slaveholding stales have always be- 
lieved that the holding of the coloured people of the south 
in bondage, is a sin against God, and an outrage on the rights 
of man. " Acting on this belief those northern states, in which 
slaves were held, have abolished the evil by their emancipa- 
tion. It has long been cherished as a general expectation, in 
the free states, ihat the progress of illumination in the south, 
and the operation of the principles of freedom, embodied in 
the civil instiluiions of the nation, would lead to the gradual 
and ciiiire manumission of the southern slaves. When the 
colonization society was organized, and announced to the 



[ 11 j 

northern people, it was hailed as a happy means calculated 
greatly to accelerate an event of which all were ardently desi- 
rous. Funds were poured into its treasury with ^ liberality, 
almost entirely prompted by the anti-slavery principle. Had it 
been regarded as a measure to bind more firmly the fetters of the 
slave, its dollars would not have amounted, north of Mason's 
and Dickson's line, to mills. After an experiment of nearly 
twenty years by the colonization society, and waiting, in dis- 
appointed expectation, for more than half a century on the op- 
eration of liberal principles, and meeting with disappointment 
only, it was determined by many enlightened and benevolent 
men to bring the question of emancipation before the public. 
They saw the number of slaves multiplying to a frightful ex- 
tent — they saw the fetters of the slave becoming every year 
more firmly rivetted — they saw seventy thousand human be- 
ings yearly added to the list of slaves — they saw hundreds of 
thousands of their fellow creatures deprived by slavery of all 
the meansof intellectual improvement — and, what is infinitely 
more deplorable, cut off from the means of grace ; and they re- 
solved to make an effort. The northern people saw themselves 
bound by the Federal constitution to support all this oppress- 
ion, and aid the south in sustaining what they deemed iniquitous. 
As the south had neglected even to commence the application 
of the principles of American liberty to their coloured popula- 
tion, and as the very discussion of the subject began to be held 
criminal among the holders of slaves; many thought it was 
time the attention of the nation should be called to this alarm- 
ing and rapidly accumulating national evil. Gradual emanci- 
pation had been expected from the influence of the principles 
of freedom — gradual emancipation had been hoped for from the 
operations of the colonization society — gradual emancipation 
had disappointed them in the one case fifty years and in the 
other twenty. They found ali this was as vain as to hope for 
the gradual emancipation of the drunkard from the slavery of 
intemperance. Indeed the enlightened and efficient pleadings 
of eloquence in the cause of temperance, prepared the way 
and it probably led to the doctrine of immediate emancipation. 
It is perfectly certain that, in many instances, those individu- 
als who have been most zealous and forward in the cause of 
temperance, are the zealous friends of immediate emancipa- 
tion. Besides all this, happy in the enjoyment of the sweets 
of liberty as the best earthly boon of heaven, born in the home 
of freedom and nurtured in the lap of liberty, they did not under- 
stand how any man could be a slave and be happy. They 



[ 12] 

knew the slave to be degraded, they believed him to be 
wretched, and they had "compassion on his bonds." By 
the grant of Heaven and by the laws of their country, they 
were certain they had an inalienable right to the free discus?ioD 
of this topic. They embarked in the cause with the same de- 
liberate determination, the same boldness and the same mag- 
nanimity, with which they had enlisted themselves in the ranks 
of temperance, and determined to do their duty to God, and 
to their country. Anti-Slavery societies were form.ed by such 
men, with such views, in some of the New England states, in 
the state of New- York, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, and in Indi- 
ana, in the summer of 1833, and in the following winter. — 
These were all connected together, after the example of the 
American Bible Society, and the American Temperance So- 
ciety, in a National Society. The south may rage and de- 
nounce as ignorant fanatics, the friends of the oppressed in the 
north, and may rave through the whole vocabulary of vituper- 
ation, but they know that the men who have enlisted them- 
selves under the Anti-slavery banners, will bear a comparison 
with the most intelligent and best citizens of this common- 
wealth. 

In that week of May, when the benevolent societies of the 
land hold their anniversaries, in the city of New-York, an at- 
tempt was made in 1834, to celebrate that of the anti-slavery 
society. The passions of the great mob were aroused, by inter- 
ested men who profited by commercial intercourse with the south, 
by politicians who courted southern votes, and by the editors of 
newspapers, who sought southern subscribers. The city be- 
came a scene of tumult and riot, such as had never before been 
witnessed in that metropolis. The houses and churches of 
anti-slavery men were attacked by a licentious and lawless 
mob, while their persons were threatened with every violence 
ihat brute force can inflict. These disgraceful outrages were 
undoubtedly countenanced, if not excited by men in high 
places. The friends of liberty, however are not easily inti- 
midated. They resolved to persevere. The attempts to pre- 
vent discussion by the outrageous violence of mobs, so far from 
arresting the progress of investigation, provoked inquiry and 
stimulated efTort. It was like the force employed by the Bri- 
tish in Boston, at ibo commencement of the American Revo- 
lution, accelerating the progress of the cause, which it was in- 
tended to ruin. Meetings of the societies already formed 
were held, liberal subscriptions were offered, agents were ap- 
pointed, and new societies organized. Many, who had been 



[13] 

lealous in the promotion of the colonization society, wheta 
they found its leading men apologizing for the evil of slavery, 
and violent in their denunciations of the doctrine of immedi- 
ate emancipation, abandoned that association, and enlisted 
themselves openly under the anti-slavery banner. More pro- 
gress was made in the summer of 1834, and during the fol- 
lowing winter, than could have been anticipated by the most 
sanguine friends of African freedom. Some of the ablest pens 
in the nation had been employed in advocating the cause of 
immediate emancipation. Among these the Rev. Mr. Phelps 
of Boston, Mrs. Child, of the same city, and Mr. Wm. Jay, are 
the most prominent. Their books are replete with able and 
dispassionate argument, and distinguished for that eloquence 
which the love of liberty inspires. They were widely circu- 
lated, read with delight, and made numerous converts. The 
circulation of the Liberator of Boston, and the Emancipator of 
New-York, was greatly enlarged, and diffused correct informa- 
tion and sound reasoning on the subject. Such strength had 
the cause acquired, that when the great anniversary week of 
the benevolent societies, in New-York, arrived, in May 1835, 
the Anti-Slavery society was permitted to hold its meeting, 
unmolested by the mob, was numerously attended, and elo- 
quent addresses heard with attention and approbation. The 
reports of its progress, and the exhibition of its resources 
alarmed the friends of oppression, and awakened their most 
bitter opposition, and fiercest rage. The means had been pro- 
vided, by subscriptions to the Emancipator and other papers, 
with very large and generous donations, to print and circulate 
emancipation tracts and papers monthly to the number of one 
hundred and fifty thousand. There were many subscribers in 
the southern states — a circumstance which perhaps more than 
all others alarmed, the slavery men. 

Many packages of these papers were sent by mail to Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, some to subscribers and others for gratu- 
itous distribution. As soon as the fact became known in thai 
city, a mob composed of persons of the highest rank in society 
assembled, seized the packages and burnt them. The Post- 
master of Charleston wrote to the Postmaster General, re- 
questing instructions on the subject ; to which that officer re- 
plied, that he had no power to interfere, but that while he would 
not authorize such acts of violence done to the United States 
mail, he did not disapprove them, thus giving his sanction, in 
part, in a case, wherein he confessed he had no legitimate power 
to decide. It was substantially authorizing mobs to desecrate 



[ 14] 

the mail and constituting every postmaster a censor of the press. 
The post master of Charleston, wrote also to the post master 
of New-York, requesting him not to mail in his office, the pa- 
pers of the anti-slavery society. With this he complied, and 
refused their transmission. For all these arbitrary acts, the 
ordinary plea of tyrants was set up — necessity. 

Within a few days after this decision of the New-York post 
master, afire broke out, on the 12th of August, in Fulton street, 
a central part of the city — and before its progress could be ar- 
rested, laid in ashes, nearly one whole square. Some book 
stores, printing offices of books and newspapers, and many of- 
fices of periodicals were consumed Such a destruction of litera- 
ture by fire, never before occurred in the city. The newspaper 
press had been generally active in the excitement of the mobs — 
it had apologized for oppression, it was a great source of revenue 
to the post office department ; and it suffered very severely in 
this conflagration. About forty buildings, in the heart of the 
city, the greater part of them sumptuous edifices, were laid 
in ruins, and the destruction of property amounted to about 
one million of dollars. The arguments and remonstrances of 
the friends of human liberty had been met, not with sober rea- 
soning, but with the outcry of " incendiary ! incendiary !" and 
divine Providence sent on the city a real burning, which des- 
troyed in a few hours the fruits of many years painful industry. 

All, however, passed unheeded and the hand of God was 
seen in none of these events. " O Lord when thy hand is 
lifted up, they will not see, but they shall see." When it was 
found that the slave masters of the south, were alarmed, exci- 
ted, enraged, and as they have long done, when displeased 
with any doings of northern men, threatened a dissolution of 
the union, — great meetings were held in New-York, Albany, 
Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, and other places, to express, 
as they said, their sympathy with their brethren of the south. 
The sounds of the slave-driver's iash and the groans of the op- 
pressed, which had been conveyed to their ears by every 
breeze from the south for fifty years, had not awakened their 
sympathy, or softened their hearts. But when the oppressor 
cries out that the property which he holds in human flesh and 
blood and souls, is endangered ; when the opulent and the 
powerful who fatten on the spoils of oppression, complain of 
free discussion their rich friends in the north are moved with 
compassion ; hold meetings, deliver harrangues, and pass reso- 
lutions, expressive of their fellow feeling for their slave-hold- 
ing brethren, their deep abhorrence of the course of those who 



[15] 

plead for the cause of universal emancipation, and pledge their 
aid to sustain the arm of oppression. What a spectacle this 
in a great, a free and a generous nation ! No pity for those 
who groan from generation to generation under the yoke of 
bondage; while jfloods of sympathetic tears gush out, for the 
griefs of those who bind the chains on the helpless slave ! — 
And what are the griefs that call forth these public demonstra- 
tions of sympathy ? Their right to enslave and hold in bond- 
age millions of unoffending himian beings has been called in 
question. This has excited their alarm. This is the fountain 
of all their woes. 

These slavery, sympathetic meetings were followed up by 
mobs and riots to put down by open violence all discussion. 
Mobs have generally been composed of the low, profligate and 
base vulgar, but not so with these northern and southern mobs 
in behalf of slavery. Men of high rank, in wealth and politi- 
cal power, have not been ashamed to place themselves in the 
front of these riotous assemblages, setting at defiance all law, 
all order, all human right. In this they were indeed, acting 
in a manner perfectly accordant with the cause which they 
espoused. 

Not less than thirty American citizens were put to death by 
rioters ; many others were scourged and otherwise tormented, 
without any forms of law, cr rights of trial. It is not too much 
to say that every death thus inflicted was a real murder. — 
Where was the arm of the law reposing all this time ? where 
was it concealed while all these outrages on the good order of 
society were perpetrated ? was there no one to bring the of- 
fenders to justice.^ None. Loose reins were given to the 
fiercest passions, to such an extent that sober and reflecting 
men began to fear the entire dissolution of the whole fabric of 
social order. 

One instance may suflice for all. An intention was an- 
nounced to form a state anti-slavery society at Utica. Many 
public prints called on the citizens of Utica to prevent it by 
violence, and there were found men, yes men of high stand- 
ing, to respond to the call. Several hundred delegates — men, 
who are equal to any others for moral worth and integrity, as- 
sembled in the month of November, and had the grant of a 
public hall, from the corporation of the city to hold their con- 
vention. The mob interfered, and the hall was closed against 
them. They met in a church. The mob too assembled, 
among whom were a member of congress and a judge of the 
court, and passed the most inflammatory resolutions, denounc- 



[ 16] 

ing the convention, and ihreatning violence unless it would 
dissolve immediately. A delegation bearing these denuncia- 
tions and threats was sent to the convention. A constitution 
had been adopted before the heralds of the mob arrived. To 
prevent the demolition of the church and the shedding of hu- 
man blood, the society adjourned to Peterboro, a village about 
twenty miles distant, where they transacted the remainder of 
their business. Amidst these scenes an incident occured, 
which clearly showed that the cause of the slavery men, was 
not promoted by these outrages. Mr. Gerrit Smith, who had 
for many years been one of the most efficient and eloquent sup- 
porters of the colonization scheme, and a powerful and zealous 
advocate of the temperance cause, abandoned the colonization 
society and avowed himself an abolitionist. We hope it is not 
too much to say that the colonizationists could not have lost a 
more powerful support, nor the abolitionists gained an abler 
auxiliary in any other individual in the United States.* Mobs 
in all countries have preceded persecution. It was a mob that 
stoned the prolo martyr Stephen, it was by mobs that the 
apostle Paul was brought into so many perils, and from these 
that he endured so much suffering. It was a mob that burnt 
Knox in effigy. The persecution of the early christians by 
the Pagan government of Rome, and that of the Scottish Re- 
formers by the Popish Mary soon followed these outrages of 
the mobs. It has been and doubtless is the intention of many 
that persecution by the civil arm, shall become the sequel to 
the doings of the mobs in this land. Southern statesmen call 
loudly for the enaction of laws by the legislatures of the free 
states, making the discussion of the slave question penal. One 
governor of the south, has made a demand on the governor of 
New-York, to deliver up to him, an editor of an anti-slavery 
paper, that he may be put on trial for his life, before a court 
and jury of slave masters. Another governor has declared, in 
a late message to his legislature, that all anti-slavery men "ought 
to be put to death without benefit of clergy." These senti- 
ments are responded to by some northern men, who call for 
law to muzzle the press and make it criminal to utter doctrines 
adverse to Negro slavery. How far they will succeed God only 
knows. We know, however, that " he maketh the wrath of 
man to praise him, and restraineth the remainder thereof." — 
The tone of discussion in congress, rather seems to indicate 

*Mr. Bachannn, lately said on the floor of congress that he had never yet 
seen one intelligent man who was an abolitionist. Were there but one such 
member of the anti-slavery society as Gerrit Smith, it would be enough to re- 
fat* such slander. 



[ 17 ] 

that the friends of the rights of man have need of grace to pre- 
pare them for the endurance of suffering for righteousness' 
sake. 

There was no small degree of anxiety in the nation, to see 
in what light this all-absorbing topic would be presented in the 
message of the President to congress, should he touch the 
subject. Many hoped that as he had been a member of a man- 
umission society, he would pass the subject without notice, or 
touch it in such a manner, as would be an honour to the Amer- 
ican character. These expectations have been disappointed. 
The President interferes in favour of slavery, and denounces 
the friends of emancipation. In this connection, it is pro- 
per to recite, as it is short, all that part of his late message 
which refers to this subject. He goes on to say : " I must also 
invite your attention to the painful excitement produced in the 
south, by attempts to circulate through the mails, inflammato- 
ry appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints 
and various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them 
to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war." 
"There is doubtless no respectable portion of our country- 
men, who can be so far misled as to feel any other sentiment than 
that of indignant regret at conduct so destructive of the har- 
mony and peace of the country, and so repugnant to all the 
principles of our national compact, and to the dictates of hu- 
manity and religion. Our happiness and prosperity essentially 
depend upon peace within our borders — and peace depends 
upon the maintenance, in good faith, of those compromises of 
the constitution, upon which the union is founded. It is for- 
tunate for the country that the good sense, the generous feeling, 
and the deep-rooted attachment of the people of the non-slave- 
holding states to the union, and to their fellow-citizens of the 
same blood in the south, have given so strong and impressive 
a tone to the sentiments entertained against the proceedings 
of the misguided persons who have engaged in these uncon- 
stitutional and wicked attempts, and especially against the em- 
isaries from foreign parts who have dared to interfere in this 
matter, as to authorize the hope that these attempts will no 
longer be persisted in. But if these expressions of the pub- 
lic will shall not be sufficient to efi^ect so desirable a result, not 
a doubt can be entertained, that the non-slaveholding states, 
so far from countenancing the slightest interference with the 
constitutional rights of the south, will be prompt to exercise 
their authority in suppressing, so far as in them lies, whatever 
is calculated to produce this evil," 

C 



[ IS] 

'*'In leaving the care of the other branches of this interest- 
ing subject to the state authorities, to whom they properly be- 
long, it is nevertheless proper for congress to take such meas- 
ures as will prevent the post office department, which was de- 
signed to foster an amicable intercourse and correspondence 
between all the members of the confederacy, from being used 
as an instrument of an opposite character. The general gov- 
ernment, to which the great trust is confided, of preserving in- 
violate the relations created among the states by the constitu- 
tion, is especially bound to avoid in its own action, any thing 
that may disturb them. I would, therefore, call the special at- 
tention of congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the 
propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe 
penalties, the circulation in the southern states, through the 
mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves 
to insurrection." 

In this document there are three things which the friends of 
human liberty must regret, especially,, irom a quarter so re- 
spectable. 1. All the advocates of immediate emancipation 
are denounced as persons of no respectability; for it is affirm- 
ed that they and their friends are no respectable portion of 
the community. This severe denunciation extends to many 
hundreds of clergymen and gentlemen of the bar and to many 
thousands of citizens reputable farmers, merchants and me- 
chanics, who have maintained unsullied reputations, and who 
have never been charged witl) any wrong doing, except that 
they have plead the cause of human liberty. Numerous, large 
and respectablejudicatories of the church, who have passed 
resolutions in favour of abolition are held up to odium, as "iAe 
offscourings of all things,'^ and as '• turners of the luorld vp 
side doivn.^' 2. They are commended to the indignation of 
the virtuous and patriotic part of the community. - One would 
have thought rioters, and mobs, in the execution of their code 
of Lynch-laws, had manifested excitement enough to satisfy 
the most violent, without adding more fuel to the flame, for the 
purpose of swelling the conflagration, that burnt with such 
fury as justly to alarm all thoughtful men. One would have 
expected the pilot to have poured oil on the troubled waters, 
while the tempest of j)opular passion was raging with unbridled 
fury. It will be well if those who have been so ready to ex- 
cite the riotous passions of the mob are not made themselves 
to feel the fury of its rancour. 3. The enaction of " severe 
penalties" is recommended, 1. Indirectly to the state govern- 
menis, and 2. Directly to the general government- It is said 



[in 

if these attempts "be persisted in, not a doubt can be enter- 
tained, that the non-slaveholding states, so far from counte- 
nancing the slightest interference with the constitutional rights 
of the south, will be prompt to exercise their authority in sup- 
pressing, so far as in them lies, whatever is calculated to pro- 
duce this evil." " The slightest interference''^ with the business 
of slave-holding is speaking against it in private life. It is not 
interference by force of arms, but the uttering of one word 
against the evil, that must be prevented. The meaning of all 
this is, that if any man shall dare to publish, preach, or even 
speak of negro slavery as an evil — if those who have done so 
shall persist in it, then it will be the duty of the states prompt- 
ly to repress this freedom of speech, of the press, and of the 
pulpit, by penal laws. If any ecclesiastical judicatory shall 
touch the subject of slavery, the state legislatures must be 
prompt to interfere with their proceedings, and declare them 
by law seditious. By such enactments Thomas Jefferson, 
William Wirt, and Benjamin Franklin, were they alive, would 
be put under the ban, especially Mr. Jefferson, who in his notes 
on Virginia, says, " that if the slaves would rise to assert their 
freedom, he knows no attribute of God Almighty that would 
induce Him to take part with the whiles." Were the legisla- 
tures of the free states to act on this hint of the president, it 
would be well to consider whether he who would print or sell 
the notes on Virginia, containing such incendiary doctrines, 
should not be subjected to civil pains. We have never seen 
any abolition paper that contained a more inflammatory senti- 
ment. In truth, according to this doctrine of the message, all 
that Clarkson ever wrote, all that Wilberforce ever published, 
all that Jefferson or Franklin ever uttered on the subject of 
slavery, must be locked up, or burnt by the hands of the com- 
mon hangman, as the Covenants of the Protestants in Britain 
were in 1666, by the order of Charles II. Let this business 
once begin and God only knows were it will end. 2. Con- 
gress are recommended to interfere by '^severe penalties,^^ to 
prevent as far as in them lies, of course, the great evil of free 
discussion. These severe penalties plainly indicate what it is 
intended shall be done hy the stale legislatures. 

It is plainly to be inferred that the discussion of any article 
of the constitution, with a view to its amendment, is a criminal 
attack on the union. Such has not heretofore been the doc- 
trine of statesmen on this subject. Far from it indeed — 
Amendments have been recommended, discussed with even 
vehemence, and passed. But this can never happen again, if 



[ 20 1 

no provision of the constitution can be questioned, without sub- 
jection to civil pains. 

Again, there are several things wanting in this solemn docu 
ment, omissions hardly less to be regretted than its harsh dec- 
larations and denunciations. 1. There is not the remotest hin: 
that any liberty of speech is vested in man by his Maker, ot 
is guaranteed by the Federal constitution, or by the charter* 
of the states. 2. There is no intimation that the coloured peo- 
ple have been deprived of any right, or that it is any evil 
either physical or moral to hold them, unoffending as they are, 
in perpetual bondage. 3. There is no suggestion that the two 
millions of slaves are objects of compassion, and that those who 
plead their right to liberty, may be moved by a generous sym- 
pathy for them in their hard bondage. 4. There is not even 
insinuated any disapprobation of those murderous riots, which 
have threatened the dissolution of society, while they have 
destroyed the property and taken the lives of peaceable citi- 
zens, in the exercise of constitutional rights. Are these things 
becoming a great, a generous and free people f They are dark 
and portentous clouds gathering in the horizon, threatening to 
burst over the land ere long, in all the fury of persecution. 

If the holding of two millions of men in bondage be at all a 
sin, it is one of deep and dreadful aggravation. For it is done 
by a nation whom God has made free ; by a nation that boasts 
above all the kingdoms of the world, of its devotion to freedom ; 
by a nation that has been highly favoured of Heaven ; by a 
nation enlightened by millions of Bibles, and fifteen thousand 
churches ; and by a nation that proclaims the doctrine that all 
men are born free and equal. If it be a wrong it has been and 
is inflicted on millions of helpless strangers who have never 
harmed us, who have been forced from the land of their fathers* 
sepulchres, and who have borne the yoke of bondage with ex- 
traordinary patience. If it be a wrong, it has been persevered 
in for many generations, and on this account, is deeply aggra- 
ted. There was a time, when among the people of the free 
states and indeed even among the people of the south, it was 
scarcely necessary to argue this topic — all or nearly all admitted 
that slavery was a moral evil. These days it seems have 
passed away. Slave masters generally seem to have come to 
a determination to maintain boldly the doctrine that they have 
a moral right to hold the slaves and their children in endless 
bondage. After all, slavery is a sin, and a sin of enormous 
aggravation, for: — 

1. It is contrary to the whole tenor of divine revelation, and 



[21] 

10 special commandments and declarations. To the whole 
tenor of the Bible — Jesus Christ came to emancipate from 
bondage. " The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because 
he hath appointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he 
hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliver- 
ance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set 
at liberty them that are bruised," Luk. iv. 18. What minister 
of the gospel could expound in the southern states this text, ac- 
cording to its true import, without being deemed there an in- 
cendiary ? As deliverance from bondage is the burden of the 
Saviour's mission, so the sacred pages are quickened with the 
vital energies of liberty. The gospel proclaims a heavenly ju- 
bilee, and ** they are a blessed people that know the joyful 
sound." The Bible teaches every where justice, mercy, kind- 
ness, compassion, and good will to all men. 

It is contrary to many special intimations of the will of God. 
"If ye oppress not the stranger — then will! cause you to dwell 
in this place." Jer. vri, 6, 7. " Thou shalt not oppress a stran- 
ger, nor vex him." Ex. xxii, 21. This command is frequent- 
ly reiterated in various forms. The Africans are emphatically 
strangers, and from generation to generation are not regarded 
as citizens, in the southern states, but as strangers. Surely to 
€na|lave a man, to subject his will to mine without his consent, 
to force him under the lash, to labour not for himself, but for 
his master, to deprive him of the right of acquiring property, 
is to oppress him. Were any southern slave master kidnapped, 
transported to the shores of Africa, and there reduced to the 
condition in which he keeps his slave, he would call it — all the 
earth would call it — oppressing the stranger. " Withhold 
not good from them to whom it is due," Prov. iil 27. Is 
not liberty a good thing. ^ Has not every man, a right to his 
liberty who has not forfeited it by some crime f Here is a 
command to give the African his liberty. "Woe to him that 
useth bis neighbour's service without wages and giveth him 
not for his work," Jer. xxii. 13. Is not the slave his master's 
neighbour ^ He lives near him. He does not, he cannot 
while a slave give him wages. If there ever was, or can bean 
instance where a man uses another's service without wages, it 
is that of negro slavery. God then denounces a woe on the 
holder of the slave. "And ye were now turned and had done 
right in my sight, in proclaiming every man liberty to his 
neighbour. Jer. xxxiv. 15. Here the slave is called a neigh- 
bour. When the people set them free, they did what God 
esteeimed right or justice, and of course when they held them 



[ 23 ] 

in bondage, they did what was wrong or unjust in his sight. — 
" But ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man 
his servant and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at 
liberty at their pleasure, to return and brought them into sub- 
jection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids : there- 
fore thus saith the Lord, ye have not hearkened unto me in 
proclaiming liberty every man to his brother and every man to 
his neighbour : behold, I proclaim a liberty for you saith the 
Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine," v. 15 
and 16. By holding their neighbour in bondage, they pollu- 
ted the name of God, whose image was in the slave, and they 
did not hearken to God ; therefore he sent on them the sword, 
pestilence and famine, to show them how deeply their sins 
were aggravated in his sight. " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour as thyself." Lqk. x. 27. He who enslaves his neighbour 
and appropriates to himself all the proceeds of his labour, does 
not love his neighbour as himself. He would not reduce him- 
self to that condition^ to which he has reduced his neighbour. 
Besides, this command comprehends the whole of the second 
table of the law, and therefore he who breaks it, violates every 
precept of that summary of social duly. " Do to all men, as 
you would that they should do unto you." *' God hath made of 
one blood all men to dwell on all the face of the earth." " He 
that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, 
he shall surely be put to death." Ex. xxi. 16. The kindnap- 
per, the slave dealer, and the slave holder, all incur this pen- 
altv : for — '* The law was made — for men stealers." i. Tim. 
I. 9 and 10. These texts are but a specimen of hundreds of 
others similar. 

In reply to all this we are told that Abraham held slaves ; 
thai the Israelites were permitted of God to enslave the hea- 
then around them and even their own brethren. Those wha 
do not acknowledge the Ho!y Scriptures as the rule of legisla- 
tion, cannot availthemselves consistently of any argument from 
that source. Neither the Federal nor any state constitution, 
recognizes the Bible as their supreme law. nor indeed as bind- 
ing at all the consciences of legislators. Repudiating its claims 
in all other matters, such as adopt the principle of these instru- 
ments, that the word of God is not a law to human law-givers, 
ought not to resort to it for a justification of their oppression of 
human beings. Nothing can be more preposterous than the 
attempt to make the oracles of truth hostile lo the liberties of 
men. Such attempts are the grossest perversions. Were it 
ever truo that the patriarchs and Israelites enslaved men, as 



[ 23] 

the southern slave masters do the African race, and nothing 
was evermore untrue, itw^ould not avail them. Abraham had 
two wives, Jacob four, and Solomon one thousand. Would they 
plead these examples as a justification of polygamy ? The 
argument would be as available. The sons of Adam married 
their own sisters ; and does that justify such marriages now ? — 
One of Abraham's servants would have been his heir, had not 
God given him a son. And there is not a shadow of evidence 
that those families, belonging to his household were reduced 
to servitude by lawless violence, as the Africans have been by 
slave traders, whom the law of the land brands as pirates. — 
They were evidently related to the patriarch, rather as clients 
have been in other nations, to their patrons. No one can ever 
prove that those who were bought with Abraham'? money, had 
not voluntarily by indenture, entered into the service of their 
former masters. And it is perfectly certain that if they were 
reduced to slavery by unlawful predatory violence, those who 
so enslaved them sinned against both God and man, had before 
God no right to them, and could transfer none to Abraham. — 
It is admitted that Abraham's descendents held bondmen, with 
the divine permission, but not in such bondage as the slaves 
of the south. In some instances God allowed them to reduce 
to the condition of servants, persons of the seven nations, as a 
commutation for death. God's peculiar people were commis- 
sioned by the supreme and righteous judge of all the earth to 
exterminate the Canaanitish nations. A few were excepted, 
to be made hewers of wood and drawers of water. If the 
slaughter of the seven nations does not authorize the United 
States to exterminate any neighbouring or remote nation, 
neither does the reduction of some of them to bondage author- 
ize Negro slavery. Of those nations that were round about 
them, they might procure bond-servants, whose time was sold 
for debt, or who had been reduced into that state as a punish- 
ment for crime, or who had been made captives in lawi"ul war; 
for under such limitations the service must have been placed, 
otherwise the law would have authorized lawless outrage. — 
How utterly shocking to the pious mind the impious supposi- 
tion, that the divine law legalized such enslaving of men, as 
that which the United States denounces as piracy ! And what- 
ever distinction the law made in granting some prerogatives 
in this respect to God's covenant people, is now abolished ; for 
the Jew under the Gospel is not more favoured than the 
Gentile. Were there in this respect special privileges granted 
to Christian nations, the United States could not claim them, 



[ 24 J 

as the constitutions do not pretend to be predicated on the 
Christian religion. If the Bible condemns the Negro Slave 
Trade, then it cuts up slavery by the roots. As to the enslav- 
ing of their brethren, the Israelites were absolutely prohibited: 
— all men are now brethren. " Thou shall not compel him to 
serve as a bondman." Lev. xxv. 39. " As a yearly hired ser- 
vant shall he be with him," v. 53. This latter text shows 
that there were hired servants different from those that were 
hired yearly. Servants hired for life on stipulated terms. — • 
The law of the Jews was in relation to the poor most benevo- 
lent. If one become poor, money must be given him without 
interest, or he must be set up again in business on stock fur- 
nished him without usury. If he still cannot succeed, being 
found incompetent to provide for himself, he is sold or put 
under the care of some one with his family, who will direct 
his labour and teach him to work and transact business. In 
the seventh year he goes out free, and he must not go out 
empty — his master, as he is called, must set him up again in 
business. Lev. xxv. 35, 55. And this most benevolent pro- 
vision for the poor is compared to negro slavery and pressed 
into the service of oppression! Would to^God, the African 
race were treated according to these most benevolent laws. — • 
They and all other unoffending residents in Christian nations, 
have a right to be so dealt with, if there is any force in this 
law, as there is assuredly. 

The slave masters and their apologists endeavour to press 
the new Testament too into their service. Christ, we are told, 
preached not against slavery among the Jews, though it existed 
while he was on earth, his disciples were equally indulgent to 
that slavery which was practised in the Roman empire, and 
the early christians were slave-holders. For some reason or 
other, both Christ and his disciples were considered incendia- 
ries by opulent slave-holders, both of the Jews and Gentiles, 
and were subjected to the violence of mobs, and to the perse- 
cuting severities of iniquitous laws. But Christ did denounce 
slavery. " Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them ; for this is the law 
of the prophets." Mat. vii. 12. The benevolent Jewish law 
providing for the poor was a part of the law that he recom- 
mends. Unless masters wished their servants to reduce them 
to slavery, he denounced that kind of oppression. The apos- 
tles denounced slavery. *' If ye can be free use it rather." — 
This was their advice to servants. They did, indeed, enjoin 
upon them, when they could not be free, to be patient and re- 



[ 25 ] 

signed to this affliclive dispensation of God's providence, as 
Christ enjoins on his followers : " Whosoever shall smite thee 
on the right cheek turn to him the other also." Mat. v. 39. — 
Paul to Timothy recognizes the Jewish law agasint man-sleal- 
ers as still binding under the New Testament. Their whole 
system of doctrine in all its benevolent import is a denuncia- 
tion of slavery. 

Whether slaves were held by the early Christians or not, ens 
thing is certain, "not many rich men after the flesh were call- 
ed" — of course, there were not among them many opulen; 
slave-holders. That they had people under them who ai'Q 
called servants, is indeed true, so have Christians in England, 
so have we in the free states, hut we have no slaves. Because 
the word servant occurs so often in \he English law books, 
and in those of ournon-slave holding states ; it would bejustas 
fair to infer that the English and we hold slaves, like the colour- 
ed bondmen of the south, as to infer from the language of the 
New Testament that the apostolic disciples were slave hold- 
ers. They slander the early disciples of Jesus, who draw 
this unwarranted and wicked conclusion. That Onesimus wa3 
any other kind of a servant than is held in England or in the 
state of New-York, cannot be proved; for it is not true. If 
he had been ihe property of Philemon, as his horse or his dog, 
Paul could never have affirmed that he might have retained 
him without wrong to his fellow christian. Let not then slave- 
holding clergymen, slave-holding professors, and others silence 
the clamours of conscience, by an attempt to persuade them- 
selves that the patriarchs, apostles and disciples of the Lamb, 
were their predecessors in binding llie yoke on the neck of th» 
slave. Heaven forbid such a perversion. Long did the 
Jesuits and other panders of despotism, pretend to preach from 
the oracles of the living God, the doctrine of passive obedi- 
ence and non-resistence to tyrants. Their false comments 
have long since been exploded, and these abusers of divine 
revelation justly held up to the honest indignation of the lovers 
of the Bible and friends of rational liberty. To that class of 
men we refer the apologists of slavery much better than to 
number them with those holy men who in ancient times shed 
the lights of truth and liberty on a benighted world. 

2. Slavery is a sin, because all the rigiit of the master to the 
slave originated in piracy, and the right of the present holder 
is not better than that of the captor from whom he bought 
him. This matter is settled by a law of the United States 
and by the voice of Christendom. A part of the law of cofi- 

D 



[26 ] 

gress on this subject is as follows : — " If any citizen of ihe 
United States, being of the crew or ship's company of any for- 
eign vessel engaged in the slave trade, or aby person whatever, 
being of the crew or ship's company, of any vessel owned in 
whole or in part, or navigated for or in behalf of any citizen 
or citizens of the United States, shall land from any such ves- 
sel, and on any foreign shore, seize any negro or mulatto, not 
held to service or labour, by the laws of either of the states 
or territories of the United States, with intent to make such 
negro or mulatto a slave, or shall decoy or forcibly bring or 
carry, or shall receive such negro, or mulatto on board any such 
vessel with intent as aforesaid, such citizen shall be adjudged 
a pirate, and on conviction thereof, before the circuit court of 
the United States, for the district, wherein he may be brought, 
or found, shall suffer death." — Gordon's Digest of the Laws 
of the United States, p. 719. Sec. 3367. 

This remarkable act decides many important points. — 

1. That the African is a human being, entitled to the rights 
that are common to men ; for piracy is a violation of human 
rights, and an attack on those who belong to our species. — 

2. That those who injure an African, by depriving him of his 
rights, are guilty of as great a crime, as if they had inflicted 
the same injury on a while man ; for no greater punishment 
could be decreed against one who would unjustly enslave any 
European or American. 3. That the enslaving of the African 
in the way in which it has always been done, is a violation of 
the lavvs of nations and an outrage on the rights of man. — 
4. That he who buys a slave from the original captor, with in- 
lent to enslave him, has no right to him, and is, in fact, as 
guilty as the pirate who originally seized him. He who "re- 
ceiyei" the captured African on board his ship is adjudged a 
pirate and suffers death. He may have bought him, and paid 
for him, but the plea will not avail ; for " he is found in his 
hand," and therefore his crime is capital. In this instance, 
the Jewish law is copied into the statute book of the United 
States. '• And he that stealeth a man and sellelh him, or if he 
be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Ex. 
XXI. 10. As far as regards the continent of Africa and the 
high seas, this is the law of the United States. 5. That all 
those Africans who have been seized, dragged from their na- 
tive land, and reduced to bondage, have right to theii freedom. 
The white man, whom the pirate seizes has a right to his free- 
dom, no matter how many hands he may have passed through, 
no iQatter iiovv many times bought and sold, no matter in what 



[ 27 ] 

land, or in whose hand he may be found. The enslaver of 
the African commits as great a crime, as he who enslaves a 
white man; and the rights of the coloured man have been as 
much outraged ; if then the white man has a right to his free- 
dom, so has the black. 

It is true, indeed, the law makes an exception of those who 
are held to service in any state or territory of the United 
States, but that does not alter the principle on which the act is 
based. Before God, and the nations and in sight of the Uni- 
verse, the Africans had the same rights before the United 
States' congress enacted that law, as they have since, and as 
much injustice was done them forty years ago, when they 
were forcibly brought into bondage as is done them now. The 
sin of those who hold them in slavery, is greatly aggravated, 
indeed since this nation has proclaimed before the whole world 
its piratical origin ; but the rights of the African race have 
neitherbeen increased or diminished. If the slave trade was not, 
in its nature, piracy before the passage of the law, the act was 
grossly iniquitous. 

The conduct of the United States in this whole business, 
has been like that of the Lacedemonians, whose general treach- 
erously seized the city of Thebes, their friend and ally. The 
government of Lacedemon, condemned the general for treach- 
ery, and removed him from his command, but they retained 
the city. The slave traders have been adjudged pirates, and 
condemned to death, but the slaves who had been captured 
by these marauders, are still held in bondage. All that is 
said of their benevolent treatment, by their masters, were it true 
to the letter, is no justification of their retaining possession of 
property, the right to which originated in the piratical plunder 
of the nations of Africa. This statute of the United States is 
based on principles which are utterly irreconcilable with the 
right of the slave-masters to hold property in the flesh and 
blood of the African race — with receiving and holding in sla- 
very the coloured man, who has been transferred to him by a 
pirate, whose hands were reeking with blood, and whose neck 
deserved the halter. And what difference is there between 
him who enslaves the African, when born in Africa, and him 
who enslaves the coloured child born in this land of freedo;m ^ 
Had the holder a right to the mother, who gave him a right 
to her child ? He cannot claim even under a title derived 
from a slave trading pirate. His right is the same, as that of the 
pirate to the mother, whom he seized, and received in his ship 
or the slave coast. If it was piracy to enslave the mother, 



[28 ] 

what is that act to be called that enslaves the child, especially 
if that child be the offspring of the man, who makes it his 
slare, and sells it as goods and chattels, with his horses and 
oxen ? 

3. Slavery is a sin, because it i? necessarily, especially in a 
free country, a source of cruelty, suffering and vice. Of cru- 
elty ; for slaves cannot be made to work for others without 
the use of the lash : — of cruelty; forbusbands and wives, pa- 
rents and children are torn from one anoilier's embraces, and 
all the most tender ties of kmdred affections ruptured, so that 
even the hope of earthly comfort sickens and dies. While the 
klave is considered as properly, this is unavoidable. Masters 
become insolvent, masters die, and their property must in the 
former case be sold under the hammer, in the latter it is either 
exposed to sale or distributed among heirs, often living remote 
from each other. That these are tiie practical results of sla- 
very in the south is not denied, and we may reasonably infer 
that in a christian country like this, where there are so many 
incentives to benevolence, that what does in fact happen, may 
be fairly charged on the system : — Of cruelty again ; for it be- 
comes necessary to keep the slave in ignorance, lest he should 
know his rights and become turbulent. Can anv thing be 
more cruel than forcibly shutting out the light of knowledgje 
from the human mind ^ It deprives man of all the higher and 
nobler sources of enjoyment and makes his pleasures, if he 
have any, gross and sensual, as those of the brute. The mind 
is endowed of God with faculties, and stimulated by curiosity, 
to acquire knowledge ; and he has furnished the means of in- 
tellectual improvement. To quench this light in darkness is 
more cruel ilian to put out the eyes, lest they see the light of 
heaven. Can we believe that unless it were necessarv, in or- 
der to render slave property secure and profitable, the law of 
some slave-holding states would make it a crin)inal offence, 
for even a father to teach his own child to read ! It is cruel 
because the slave is generally deprived of the means of salva- 
tion. He cannot read the holy scriptures ; it is a sealed book 
to him, and he perishes for lack of knowledge. The hands of 
the Ethiopian are bound in manacles, yes, even by the min- 
isters of religion, lest he should stretch them out to God. He 
is blindlolded, lest he should sec the light of liberty and pant 
for its enjoyment : he is kept ignorant, lest he should seek 
that " liberty uherewilh Christ makes his people free." The 
writer has travelled through the southern states and knows all this 
to be true. Slavery is a fruitful source of sin. Mr. Jefferson says, 



[ 29 ] 

and who knew better : " There must doubtless be an unhap- 
py influence on the manners of our people, produced by the 
existence of slavery among us." And after describing the 
process by which southerners, are'' nursed, educated, and daily 
exercised in tyranny" as he expresses it, until they become 
tyrants, he adds : — " The man must be a prodigy who can 
retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circum- 
stances. And with what execration should the statesman be 
loaded, who permitting one half i)f the citizens, thus to trample 
on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and 
these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and 
the amor patrias of the other."* This is the voice of a slave- 
holder. It will not be difficult to find such statesmen as those 
whom he holds up to execration. Were he now alive and 
now to publish such sentiments as these, what prospect would 
he have of being chosen president of the United States .^^ — 
Would he not rather be threatened with the halter and the 
scaffold.^ This change in the feelings of society, is perhaps 
one of the best evidences of the truth of his declaration, that 
slavery has '' an unhappy influence on the manners of our peo- 
ple." While the master and his household are freed from the 
necessity of labour, the time, which would be otherwise use- 
fully occupied, is spent in voluptuous indulgence, in the bar 
room, at the card table, at the horse-race, in the cock-pit, or 
in the . " But," as Mr. Jefl^erson remarks in this connec- 
tion, "it is impossible to be temperate and pursue this sub- 
ject," especially as we have little reason to say with the same 
author: "The way, I hope is preparing, under the auspices 
of Heaven, for a iotal emancipation, and that it is disposed, in 
the order of events to be with the consent of their masters." 

4. Slavery is a sin ; for it is in direct opposition to the whole 
doctrine of American liberty. Miserably do the advocates of 
oppression faulter, when they touch the subject under this as- 
pect, and attempt to prove that negro slavery is C(msistent with 
the doctrine "that all men are born free and equal." That the 
African race are men they dare not deny ; for every other 
consideration apart, they would by doing so, destroy their right 
to a large representation in congress, based on their slave pop- 
ulation. Then there is no way of evading the force of this 
maxim drawn from the oracles of the living God. " He hath 
made of one blood all men to dwell on all ihe face of the 
earth." Avowing this doctrine of the declaration of independ- 
ence and solemnly sworn to its support^ they set it at nought 

•Jefferson Notes on Virginia, p. 240-1. 



[ 30 ] 

by holding two millions of men in bondage, who are born as 
free as themselves, and proclaiming their determination to 
make them and their children slaves forever. Was there ever, 
can there be a more glaring contradiction? And for pleading 
this doctrine, and insisting on its universal application, they 
affirm that their fellow citizens" should be put to death with- 
out benefit of clergy.""^ 

If these arguments do not prove negro slavery to be a sin, 
we may despair of ever proving any wrong done by men to 
be sinful. It is forbidden by the authority of Heaven, it origi- 
nates in piracy, it is the fruitful parent of cruelty, suffering 
and sin, it is contrary to established maxims of American lib- 
erty that are founded on the word of God. So much force 
have arguments like these, (we have the authority of Governor 
Marcy, in his late message to the New-York Legislature for 
it) on the citizens of this state that they all unite in its con- 
demnation. The Governor says : " Is it" (the object of anti- 
slavery,) " to convince the people of this state that slavery is an 
evil ? Such is now the universal sentiment." If it be an evil 
and is so regarded by the universal sentiment of the people of 
this state, why all these attempts to crush every effort to awa- 
ken among us a due sense of the evil and to prepare the way for 
its removal ? The author of that document admits that those 
who are making these efforts are conscientious. He says : — 
"A few individuals in the middle and eastern states, acting on 
mistaken motives of moral and religious duty, &c." All agree 
in sentiment that it is an evil, some persons conscientiously 
reason against it, to awaken public attention to the subject; and 
yet, if we do not misunderstand the Governor, he recommends 
that unless they cease from these efforts in opposing an evil, 
severe penal statutes shall be enacted, and heavy punishments 
inflicted on these opponents of the evil. He affirms that the 
constitution of the United States binds all to support the evil, 
and yet they may say, publish, or preach nothing that tends to 
its removal. So open a recommendation to persecute for 
righteousness' sake, we have never read. When persecutors 
recommend and exercise violence, they represent the doc- 
trines which they would suppress as evil ; but in this instance, 
it is admitted that the abolitionists are opposing evil. The 
pretext for this attack on the liberty of speech, on the liberty 
of the press, and on the liberty of conscience, is that the slave 
masters cannot be convinced ; (hat northern people do not need 
discussion for they are all agreed in the great principle of the 

•See Gov. McDuiSio's latomossago to the Legislature of South Carolina. 



[31 ] 

abolitionists, that slavery is an evil. So it seems that all dis- 
cussion is to be foreclosed, and made treason. To please the 
holders of slaves, the people of the free states, however great 
they may think the sin, must not discuss it — the south pro- 
claim their resolution to continue it forever — and the friends of 
liberty in the north must not say them nay ; and so this mis- 
chief preying on the vitals of the commonweahh must be per- 
petuated without any one daring to propose a remedy. All 
this reasoning of the governor would have applied with as 
great force against the efforts of Wilberforce and other philan- 
thropists in the British parliament and nation, for the abolition 
of the slave trade. It might have been said, the whole people of 
England, Scotland and Ireland, are of one sentiment that the 
slave trade is evil, the slave traders and the West India planters 
cannot be convinced — they are exasperated only, and so all dis- 
cussion must cease. No attempt like this was ever made by the 
British Government, and is it to be recommended in this free 
nation, where the liberty of the press is held to be so sacred 
and secured under so many solemn guarantees? Forbid it 
mercy, forbid it justice, forbid it Heaven. On this principle 
the prophets of Judah were all in error, when they preached 
against the idolatry of the golden calves and of Baal in the ten 
tribes. All the people of Judah were of one sentiment that 
it was evil, and the Israelites could not be convinced — it pro- 
voked their rage only, to interfere Avith a domestic institution. 
In fact, they did so reason. " Then Amaziah, the priest of 
Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying Amos hath con- 
spired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel : the 
land is not able to bear his words — also Amaziah said unto 
Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, 
and there eat bread and prophesy there : But prophesy not 
again any more, at Bethel; for it is the King's chapel and it 
is the King's court." Amos, vii. 10, 12, 13. Amos was a 
prophet of Judea, and Amaziah would not allow of any offi- 
cious medling with the domestic institutions of the ten tribes, 
guaranteed under their constitution of government. 

But the arguments of this message do not appear to be very 
well founded ; for if as the southern people say, their slaves 
are contented and happy, what danger can there be among 
them from abolition papers f Why is there danger of the ex- 
plosion of a magazine .^ Again, if there is no possibility of 
convincing any slave-holder and inducing him to free his bond- 
men, what harm can all the reasonings of abolitionists do either 
to the free, or to the slave population ? They and their 



[32] 

apologists here affirm ihat there is danger. It must arise from 
the discontent of wretched slaves, or from the convictions of 
masters' consciences, or from both. So it appears that 
an effect on the south, fiivorable to emancipation may be 
produced by the labours of anti-slavery societies. The sym- 
pathetic meetings, the mobs, the riots, the lynching, nay even 
the message itself bear unequivocal testimony, either that the 
sentiment against slavery in the north is not universal, or that 
it is feeble, and needs to be quickened and strengthened. — 
That the means employed will produce this effect is certain 
and is dreaded. 

Mr. Henry Clay in a late speech before the colonization 
society, puis forth all his ample powers of eloquence to justify 
these attempts to extinguish all the lights of examination, and 
to prove that it may be done without interfering with the free- 
dom of the press, or the rights of free discussion. His main, 
indeed his whole argument rests on the ground — that the peo- 
ple of the northern states, under the constitution of the United 
States, cannot legislate on slavery, and therefore they have no 
right to discuss the subject, Ifthis reasoning be conclusive, then 
he has no right, nor has any slave-holder in the south to dis- 
cuss the proceedings of the anti-slavery societies, for by his 
own, by the president's, and by the admission of southern men 
generally, it belongs to the northern states alone to prevent 
their operations by the arm of the law ; ihey cannot make laws 
respecting the freedom of the press in New-York or Massa- 
chusetts, and according to his reasoning, ihe southern people 
may be forcibly prevented from giving utterance to their 
thoughts on this business without any interference with their 
righis. Were this reasoning cogent, the press might be re- 
strained by penalties, from publishing a syllable on the sub- 
ject of the Russian Autocrat's oppression of the Poles, or 
any tyranical doings of ihe despots of Europe or Asia. — 
Adopt this maxim and reduce it to practice and lil^rty with 
all its safeguards would be instantly annihilated. The editor 
of the newspaper, the private citizen cannot make laws, there- 
fore lie may be prevented by force from discussing the project 
of any law ; he cannot execute the laws, therefore he must 
submit without a murmur or expressing a doubt respecting 
any executive act. All would thus be reduced to the silence 
of death and the Egyptian d;ukness of despotism — a most con- 
venient condition of society for despots. 

But in truth i\Ir. Clay's assumption cannot be admitted. — 
The Congress of the United States, elected in part by the 



[33] 

people of the free states, has the sole power of legislation on 
thesubiect of slavery in the District of Columbia and mall 
the territories 5 and the northern people hj the constitution, 
have the same right to discuss, and the same right to legislate 
respecting the thousands of slaves held under the law of con- 
Sress alone, that the people of the slave states have res- 
pecting those slaves that are held under state laws. Beside 
all this, the constitution may be amended, and who shall do 
this, if the northern states, now a great majority of the nation, 
are to have no voice in the matter ? Is it discreet that a nii- 
nority of the commonwealth in the south, should say to the 
majority, vour mouths shall be forever closed on such points 
in the constitution as we desire to remain unalterable f bhall 
that minority, because they have been accustomed to issue 
their mandates uncontrouled to their millions of slaves, publish 
also their commands, to millions of freemen, in the same tone 
of arbitrary power? In doing so, not one man in the free 
states would obey them, were it not the desire to buy up south- 
ern votes and the hopes of mercantile gain. It is wonderful 
that the slave-holders and their apologists do not see, in those 
fierce attacks on the liberty of speech, an acknowledgement of 
the weakness of their cause. If it be a good one, why not al- 
low it to be tested by the severest examination ? Why not 
meet their opponents in the open field of argument, where, in 
all times past, it has been thought every question of this kmd 
was to be settled. It is always an attribute of oppression to 
dread the light, hence the attempts to quench its blaze, and 
with its extinction,no abolish the glories of liberty. Who, a 
few years ago, would have believed what is now history .''— 
How changed the times! But in the mercy of Heaven, we 
believe all these attempts will be vain and fruitless—as vamas 
to attempt to extinguish the luminaries of heaven. The God 
of heaven has promised that '' he will arise and plead the 
cause of the pof r and the needy." By his judgments on the 
land he has beep doing so, and he will continue his work until 
" he sets judgement in the earth." " Lord, when thine hand 
is lifted up they will not see ; but they shall see and be asham- 
ed." Isa. XXVI. 11. 

Some of the late judgments of Heaven on this land are re- 
corded in the preceeding pages; the late conflagrations in the 
city of New-York gives an additional display of the uplifted 
arm of Jehovah. Many ministers of the Gospel have endeav- 
ored to make a profitable improvement of this calamity, as a 
warning to men to forsake their sins and " not to trust in un- 

E 



[34] 

certain riches."* As causes of this oppaling visitation, they 
have enumerated, the too eager pursuit of wealth, the misim- 
provement of Gospel ordinances, inordinate sensual indul- 
gence, "the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye and the 
pride of life;" and all this doubtless with great propriety. To 
this list, I do not hesitate to add, the countenance that has 
been given to the cause of oppression in the nation and espe- 
cially in that city. It ought to be placed at the head of the 
catalogue. There the cause of anti-slavery became promi- 
nent, there the mobs originated, there is the home of the anti- 
slavery society, there are its leading men, against whom .the 
most fierce and fiery opposition of slave masters has been 
manifested, there 150,000 publications are i?sued monthly, in 
pleading the cause of the oppressed, and there the post mas- 
ter first refused to transmit by the mail these heralds of lib- 
erty, there the merchants for the sake of gain assembled to de- 
nounce emancipation, and politicians with their newspaper 
editors invoked the public indignation against the cause of ab- 
olition and awakened the sleeping furies of the mob. Spread- 
ing from that great metropolis, the spirit of disorder and riot 
infected the land to its remotest borders. To New-York, the 
eyes of the nation is directed, as the centre of action in the 
great contest between liberty and slavery. By commerce 
New-York is vitally connected with the prosperity of the na- 
tion and her political influence is felt in the most remote mem- 
bers of the commonwealth. She is the great mart of litera- 
ture, and the centre of intelligence. When a wound is in- 
flicted on her, the pain is diffused as from the heart, through 
every artery and vein of the empire. From her commercial 
resources, the revenues of the national government derive a 
large portion of their abundance. A great calamity, crippling 
for a lime her energies, ought not to be viewed merely as a 
visitation of Heaven for the personal sins of her citizens, but as 
a judgment of God upon the land for flagrant national transgres- 
sion. As the judgment has been inflicted before the world, 
the sin which it chastises, is likely to have been committed in 
sight of the universe. 

To view the calamity under this aspect is perfectly consis- 
tent with the most benevolent sympathies for the sufferers and 
active exertions for their relief. Who mourned with such 
grief over the desolations of Jerusalem, as the prophet Jere- 
miah, who ascribed the destruction of the city to the rod of 

•For a specimen see the sermon of Dr. Spring, published in the New-York 
Obeerver, December 26lh, 1835. 



[ 35 ] 

God chastising them for idolatry, oppression and other sins.—' 
Apart from declarations of the prophets, the hand of the Lord 
was perhaps less visible in the sacking of the Jewish capitol 
by the Assyrian armies, than in the late conflagration in our 
metropolis. The season had been remarkably dry, rendering 
every thing that furnishes fuel to fire, very combustible, and 
imparting unwonted fury to the devouring element. The in- 
tense cold of winter had commenced at a period unusually 
early, so that the oldest inhabitants had never known the frost 
so severe by the middle of December. There had been 
frequent burnings on the nights preceding the great conflagra- 
tion, such as to exhaust the firemen, at a lime when all their 
active energies were most needed. The cold was so intense, 
that the thermometer stood below zero, the element on which 
they rely to extinguish the flames was congealed. The hose 
were frozen and rendered useless. The water in the cham- 
bers of the fire engines was converted into ice. The wind in 
the N. W. blew with the violence of a tempest. How could 
the hand of God be rendered more visible than by all these 
circumstances.* All things thus arranged by Him whom the 
winds, the waves and the fire obey, between 9 and 10 o'clock 
on the evening of December 16th, the fire broke out, probably 
from the bursting of a gass pipe, in Merchant street, among lofty 
buildings, many stories high, and spread with appaling impet- 
uosity, driven forward in the work of destruction by a tem- 
pestuous wind. To the S. W. toward the East river, the streets 
were narrow, and the houses high. That is the oldest part of 
the city, the great centre of mercantile wealth and the very 
heart of the business part of the metropolis. The fire soon 
blazed up to mid heaven, so that its light was seen through the 
surrounding country to the distance ofmorethan seventy miles. 
Store after store replenished with the richest wares from all 
climes, and block after block of lordly edifices was swept off, 
and sunk into smouldering ruins with terrific rapidity, so that 
all efforts to arrest its fearful progress were utterly powerless. 
In a very little time the south side of Wall street was in a blaze, 
and the Merchants' Exchange, its greatest ornament, a sumptu- 
ous structure was enveloped in flames, its stalely dome sent up 
volumes of fire rich with empetuosity and fury, and quickly 
fell with a fearful crash into an ocean of fire. In this edifice 
the post office was kept and of course perished in the wreck. 
It was now three o'clock, but a few hours from the commence- 

♦This abstract is taken from the Journal of Commerce, the Commercial Ad- 
T^rtiBer, the Observer, the Sun, and other city papers. 



[36] 

ment of the fire ; which had extended northward and westward 
against the wind, into Wall street, and to the whole of Exchange 
Place. Every advance made in these directions widened 
greatly the scene of ruin, as it exposed the ranges of buildings 
on the south and east to the violence of the flames precipitated 
upon them by the N. W. wind. Four hours before the des- 
truction of the Exchange, the conflagration had extended to 
Water street down Wall, and some vessels at the wharves in 
Cofi*ee House Slip had taken fire. From midnight to morn- 
ing, the burning mansions of fourteen squares was one dreadful 
ocean of fire, sending up its fierce surges in terrific grandeur 
to the clouds. Ever and anon were heard explosions like the 
discharge of heavy artillery, adding to the dreadful majesty of 
the scene. Blazing fragments were borne on the wings of the 
wind across the East river, to the distance of many miles on 
Long Island. The city of Brooklyn was thought to be in 
danger, and some edifices at the navy yard, though a broad 
river was between them and the burning, took fire. To the 
south, the progress of ruin in the direction of Coenties' Slip 
was arrested by the blowing up of many houses. The fire 
raged for fifteen hours, from nine o'clock on the evening of the 
16th, to twelve at noon, on the 17th, when it ceased to extend 
its ravages. For several days the ruins continued to send up 
volumes of smoke. 

Mercy was mingled with judgment in this dispensation. Few 
lives were lost, probiibly not more than four or five ; and the 
fall business having b^en transacted, a great part of the stock 
of importers and wholesale dealers was sold out. Great also 
as the destruction was, had the fire broken out one mile farther 
to the N. W. nearly the whole city would have been laid in 
ruins. But withal, the extent of the visitation was such as to 
fill the devout mind with- a holy dread of the divine displeas- 
ure. Seventeen squares were entirely burnt down, and the 
greater part of five more ^shared the same fate, many of them 
large and all of them opulervt. Five hundred and twenty houses, 
including besides the Exchange, a Dutch Reformed Church, 
costly and venerable, were reduced to ashes. These mansions 
had mostly been re-built withi'n five or six years, at great expense. 
The amount of property coni'.umed has been variously estima- 
ted from fourteen to fifty millions of dollars. It can never be 
accurately ascertained. The committee of relief, who have 
devoted most attention to the subject, in a communication to 
the Governor of the state, estimate it at $20,000,000— -a pro- 
digious sura, more than double, the amount expended in the 



[ 37 ] 

consiruction of the grand canal, and one fourth more than the 
whole annual expense of the United States Government. The 
riches that had been accumulated by many years — yes, by 
many generations, of care, watchfulness and toil, make to 
themselves literally wings and in a few hours fly away to 
heaven. An area of the city one mile in circuit, adorned with 
costly buildings and works of art, and stored with the precious 
manufactures and products of every chme and nation, reduced 
to a worse condition than if all its improvements and wealth 
had been swept from its surface into the ocean, by a tornado. 
It has been estimated that more than five thousand persons 
were thrown out of employ for a great part of the winter. — 
There had been great reliance on the insurance offices ; and 
it was not anticipated that there could be any great and gen- 
erally disastrous loss by fire, while these companies had u 
capital of eleven or twelve millions of dollars. But as the 
weather had rendered the firemen powerless, so the policies 
of insurance were but partially available. Of twenty-eight in- 
surance companies, fourteen are become insolvent, and will 
not be able to make a dividend of more than 40 or 50 per 
cent, while all the rest have been more or less crippled.— 
Were their whole capital applied to the relief of the sufferers, 
which it cannot be, there would still be a deficit of nearly 
ten millions of dollars. The insolvency of many offices and 
the cripled state of all, leave the remaining property of the city 
unprotected. On this quarter too, the calamity is felt in dis- 
tant parts of the state. In the village of Newburgh, insuran- 
ces effected in the New-York offices, having been rendered 
unavailing, the citizens have kept on patrole, night watches 
against fire. 

Many widows, orphans, females for whom benevolent pro- 
vision for long and approved service, had been made by in- 
vestments in the fire insurance offices, and aged persons who, 
to the amount of their whole capital, were stockholders in 
these institutions, have lost all and are reduced to helpless in- 
digence. The committee of relief estimate the losses of this 
afflicted class of citizens, at one hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars. By a long winter, and cholera, the loss of property 
in 1832, was doubtless greater, but as it was borne by all 
classes, and in all parts of the state, it was not found to press on 
any with such severity as this calamity. The dispensation is 
known and felt by all to be awfully severe ; and the judgment 
has fallen on those chiefly who had the most intimate connec- 
tions with southern merchants and planters, and who on that 



[38] 

account had been most forward in their apologies for the op- 
pression of their coloured population. It is worthy of re- 
mark, that the property of Mr. Tappan, was in a great meas- 
ure secured, though in the midst of the ruins. His store house 
was, it is true, burnt down, but as the fire insurance offices of 
New- York were unwilling to insure his property, lest it should 
be destroyed by slavery mobs, he had taken out policies in ihe 
city of Boston. The coloured people of the city to evince 
their gratitude to the friend and benefactor of their race, al- 
most risked their lives, among the flames, to save his stock, 
the greater part of which they carried away and preserved 
unharmed. They who do not recognize the finger of God in 
such events as these, must be more blind than the arch slave 
holder — Pharoah. 

Those who believe that negro slavery is an evil,^ and that 
calamities such as the New-York conflagrations, are judgments 
sent to chastise for transgression, cannot refuse to admit that 
for the countenance given to this sin, in that city, it has suffer- 
ed. Governor Marcy afiirms that all the people of this state 
unite in the sentiment that it is an evil. It has been 
demonstrated in the preceding pages, that if it is an evil, it is 
one of enormous magnitude. It must be so from the very 
nature of the case. An evil in which two millions of men are 
made wretched and degraded — an evil in which ten millions 
of others, under the Federal constitution, as the governor again 
truly says, are leagued together to support, is surely enormous. 
It is an evil most likely to call down upon the land appalling 
judgments, such as that we have been contemplating. We are 
aware that many persons do not admit that God under the New 
Testament dispensation, punishes nations or cities for sin, as 
he did under the Jewish Government. That, they say was^ a 
theocracy — or a government of God, and hence all sins commit- 
ted in the commonwealth were immediately against Jehovah. 
But does not God reign now over all nations.'' Is not Jesus 
Christ as Mediator "King of Kings and Lord of Lords .^" — 
Are not all kings commanded to kiss the Son f Is he not made 
*' Lord of all to the glory of God the Father.^" His word 
was the rule among the Jews, and it is so now ; whether men 
will hear, or whether they will forbear. We are under a theo- 
cracy now, as really as the descendents of Abraham were in 
the days of David. In the dispensations of his providence to 
Israel, God gives us in the Holy Scriptures a specimen of his 
manner of governing the nations. He shews what he dennands 
of all commonwealths^ that have the light of revealed religion 



[39] 

what blessings they raay expect who obey his Son, and what 
judgments he will inflict on those who disobey and rebel. — 
The apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans, written in the 
68th year of the christian era, says :— " The wrath of God is 
revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unright- 
eousness of men." i. 18. The city of Jerusalem was destroy- 
ed by the Roman armies, under the Gospel dispensation, for 
the sin of '' crucifying the Lord of glory." We may there- 
fore enforce the maxim that national calamities are sent to 
punish national sins, from the sufferings of Israel for their sins. 
If the hand of God is in these late calamities, and who but an 
atheist will deny it, then he either inflicts for sin, or for 
no cause. The latter will hardly be asserted by any one who 
professes to believe in the being and attributes of God. It is 
the award of the common conscience of all nations, that God 
punishes with visible judgments, flagrant sins. " And when 
the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, 
they said among themselves, no doubt this man is a murderer, 
whom though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffer- 
eth not to live." Acts, xxviii. 4. Homer tells us that when 
the Grecian fleet was wind bound in Aulis, they considered it 
a token ofthe wrath ofthe gods, and that the commander in chief 
Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Ephige^iia to appease the 
winds, which they reckoned among their divinities. This doc- 
trine, as every learned reader knows, is interwoven in the 
whole texture of Homer's Illiad, and the Eneid of Virgil. — 
The plots ofthe Greek tragedians are founded upon it, espe- 
cially those of Eschilus and Euripides. It is often refered to 
even by the very licentious Horace, as in such verses as this ; 
" By our wickedness, we do not suffer Jove to lay aside his 
vengeful thunderbolts." All this demonstrates that it was the 
common sentiment of those most enlightened of the pagan 
nations of antiquity. The American Indian performs lustra- 
tions and makes oblations of tobacco and of other articles, 
to appease the Great Spirit and avert his judgm.ents. The 
rudest of the Asiatic nations, and ofthe African tribes offer sac- 
rifices for the same purpose. Hardened sinners in christian 
nations appear to be nearly alone in denying our maxim.--- 
Having thus proved that the doctrine of the Israelite, on this 
point was not peculiar to his nation, let us briefly refer to a few 
instances. 

The ten plagues that desolated Egypt were inflicted, for 
their refusal to emancipate their Israelitish slaves. Their sin 
was deeply aggravated ; for they held in cruel bondage up- 



[40] 

wards of two millions of men. They were called upon to set 
them free and refused. They might have plead what no apol- 
ogist for African slavery can plead in the extenuation of their 
sin — that the people of Israel had come voluntarily into their 
country — that they dwelt alone in the land of Goshen, that 
great favour had been shown their ancestors, that husbands 
and wives were not cruelly torn from each other's embraces — 
that Hebrew females were not compelled to live in a state of 
concubinage, with lordly Egyptian masters. They might far- 
ther have apologized for their sin, that households were allowed 
to accumulate property in flocks, herds and other possessions, 
that they had forms of government in the several tribes, that 
they had Hebrew rulers to administer their own laws, that they 
were allowed to assemble for the purpose of worshipping their 
God in peace, and that no parents were prohibited from im- 
parting any kind of good instruction to their children. None 
of all these palliations can the abettors of Negro slavery plead. 
Yet their sin was so aggravated, as to provoke the wrath of God. 
It is great transgressions, publicly committed and persevered 
in after remonstrance, that bring on a land judgments, which 
arrest the attention of all, whether they ascribe them to the 
finger of God or not. Such was the sin of Egypt. The land 
had enjoyed prosperity for several generations, while commit- 
ting the sin. Now the slave masters were called on, before 
the nation, to set them free, and the call was enforced by the 
authority of heaven, to execute immediately a deed of univer- 
sal emancipation in favour of the Hebrew slaves; they refused, 
and judgment after judgment followed in quick succession, 
until they were forced to recognize the finger of God, and let 
the people go. 

The people of the ten tribes oppressed and enslaved the 
poor, and for this the wrath of God was denounced against 
them. " Thus saith the Lord ; for three transgressions of Israel 
and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, be- 
cause they sold the righteous for silver and thejpoor for a pair of 
shoes ; that pant after the dust on the head of the poor, and 
turn aside the way of the meek of the earth ; and a man and 
his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy 
name." Amos, ii. 6, 7. They accounted human beings as 
goods and chattels — they bought and^sold them ; they turned 
aside the meek, or maligned the benevolent who remonstrated 
against these deeds. They were guilty of shameful concu- 
binage. For these sins, the prophet denounces judgment, 
which was inflicted in part, two years after, in one of the most 



[41 ] 

dreadful of all divine visitations— an earthquake. Amos 
prophesied " two years before the earthquake." Chap. i. v. i. 
But they did not reform, and for this and other sins, they were 
in the days of Hcshea, themselves made captives, and enslaved 
by Shalmanezar, King of Assyria. 

In the catalogue of sins for which the Jews were carried 
captives to Babylon, we find slavery enumerated. " In the 
midst of thee they have dealt by oppression with the stranger. 
. In thee they have vexed the fatherless and the widow." For 
this, among other sins, alarming judgments are denounced. — 
*• I will blow upon yon in the tire of my wrath, and ye shall be 
melted." Ezek. xxxvii. 7 and 24. This judgment was liter- 
ally poured out on the city, when the Assyrians burnt with fire, 
its houses, palaces and temple, very soon after the denuncia- 
tion. 

Soon after their restoration from the Babylonian captivity, 
the people returned to their former slave-holding oppression ;. 
for this is a sin to which men cleave with wonderful pertinaci- 
ty, when tlx^ have become habituated to its practice. The 
good Nehemiah knowing that this was one of the evils for 
which their city had been reduced to ashes, and themselves 
exposed to the sufferings of seventy years captivity, unlike 
modern rulers, in this land, exerted all his authority to ac- 
complish iis reform. He exacted a promise from them, con- 
firmed by a solemn oath and covenant, that they would set 
free their slaves and denounced a heavy curse against those 
who would violate the covenant. " I also shook my lap and 
said, so God shall shake out every man from his house, and 
from his labour, that performeth not this promise." Neh. v. 13. 
He should become houseless and poor, who would be guilty 
of the sin of enslaving his brethren. Thousands of other ex- 
amples might be enumerated of public punishment inflicted 
by Heaven for sin. These have been selected, as they illus- 
trate the principle of God's government in relation to the sin 
of slavery. 

Let us now turn to others, not taken from the Hebrews.—- 
The general deluge being longbefore the erection of the Jewish 
commonwealth, and a catastrophe in which all the nations of 
the world were involved, cannot be thought peculiar to the 
Hebrew polity. That it was a judgnient for great and very 
public sins is undeniable. " And God saw that the wicked- 
ness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagin- 
ition of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.'* — 
'* And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was 



[42] 

filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and 
behold it was corrupt : for all flesh had corrupted his way 
upon the earth. And God said lo Noah, the end of all flesh is 
come before me; lor the earth is filled with violence through 
ihem : and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." 
Gen. VI, 5, 1 1, 13. The general principle is here clearly as- 
serted, that nations are punished for their sins. They no 
doubt were guilty of all manner of enormous and most flagrant 
crimes— the rulers were doubtless ambitious, seeking more 
self-agrandizement than the good of their subjects, and enga- 
ging in destructive, and unjust wars to gratify their pride, av- 
arice and ambition. " The same became mighty men which 
were of old, men of renown." These gre^ men were, no 
doubt, profane swearers, sabbath breakers, infidels, scoffers at 
religion, libertines, &tc. The common people were ignorant, 
debased and profligate. But of all the vices which de- 
graded the rich and the poor, the rulers and the subjects, none 
is specified but their " violence." They trampled down the 
poor, " oppressed the stranger, the fatherless and the widow." 
The opulent enslaved the indigent, and forced them to labour 
for their proud oppressors. What variety of forms their op- 
pressing men by violence assumed, we know not, but as hu- 
man nature is the same in all ages and nations, we may safely 
infer that the enslaving of their brethern was one of them. — 
As Noah was a preacher of righteousness, he doubtless reproved 
these actF of violence ; and announced the coming judgment. 
He certainly was not a slave holder ; for had he been, his 
bondmen and bondmaids would have been taken into the ark 
with him. as a part of his property. We have, in this very 
awful event, the testimony of God that he punishes men with 
sore judgments for their iniquities, and especially for their vio- 
lence. The world in the traditions of many nations, the earth 
in its marine j)etrifRciions on the top of high mountains and 
other traces of Noah's flood, admonish all nations of the dan- 
ger of trampling under foot the laws of God, and of doing vio- 
lence to the rights of man. 

The people of Sodom were not Israelites, and yet, for their 
sins, "the Lord rained down from the Lord out of heaven, fire 
and brimstone upon the cities of the plain and made them a 
perpetual desolation." Their fulness of bread and idleness 
made them proud, luxurious and profligate, and so the wraih 
of God was revealed from heaven against them. 01 course, it 
will not be infered that these examples are adduced with a 
view to represent the sins committed in New-York, as having 



[ 43 ] 

been so aggravated as those of the antedeluvlans, and of the 
people of Sodom and Gomorab, but merely for tbe purpose of 
demonstral/ng that tbe dispensation so disjtressing to this great, 
opulent and beautiful city, was a visitation of God for sin. 

The seven nations of Canaan, were destroyed for their sins ; 
and because the iniquity of tlie Amorites was full, God gave 
commission to his chosen j)eople lo destroy them, and to take 
possession of their land. It was the work of the Lord, as was 
clearly indicated by the Captain of the Lord's hosts appearing 
to Joshua, with a drawn sword in his hand to lead Israel and 
destroy the Canaanites. 

The destruction of the great and opulent commercial city of 
Tyre was for sin. "Javan, Tubal and Mesheck were mer- 
chants : they traded the persons of men." In their extensive 
commerce, they dealt in the slave trade. In their fairs, men 
were bought and sold among other articles of merchandize.— 
For this among other transgressions, God says to them : 
** Thou shalt be broken by the seas, in the depths of the wa- 
ters, thy merchandize and all thy company, in the midst of 
thee shall fiill. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be aston- 
ished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be 
troubled in their countenance. The merchants among the 
people shall hiss at thee ; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt 
be any more." Ezek. xxvii. 13, 33 — 36. For trading in the 
persons of men, God sent the Grecian armies under Alexan- 
der the Groiit, and made that mart of nations a desolation. 

Both ancient Babylon and the modern mother of harlots 
are destroyed by many and great plagues for the multitude of 
their iniquities. The latter like Tyre, and no doubt the for- 
mer traded in *' slaves and in the souls of men." Rev. xviii. 
1 3. For these sins^ a great angel took a stone, like a great mill 
stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, thus with violence shall 
that great city of Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found 
no more at all. v. 25. 

Against six of the seven churches of Lesser Asia, the judg- 
ments of Heaven are denounced for their iniquities. "Be- 
hold I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery 
with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their 
deeds. 1 will kill her children with death and all the churches 
shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and the 
hearts: and 1 will give to every one of you according to your 
works." Rev. ii. 22, 23. These are denunciations of tem- 
poral judgments, of so public a nature that they should b« 
known to all the churches. What reason have we to luppoi^ 



[ 44 ] 

that God will deal on other principles, with the people of the 
other cities than he did with those of Thyatira ? Are not these 
things recorded in the book of God, to warn all sinners who 
may read them that by persevering in the ways of xin, with- 
out repentance or reformntion, they will bring on themselves 
"great tribulation." What he says to Thyatira, he says to 
all: — <'l will give to every one of you according to your 
works.'* 

If there is any principle of God's moral government clearly 
revealed and irrefragably proved, by the light of nature, by 
the Holy Scriptures, and by the dispensations of God's provi- 
dence, it is that when judgments fall on cities and nations, they 
are the rod of Heaven punishing them for their sins. It would 
appear then that those who adopt the sentiment that slavery 
is a moral evil, cannot deny that the late calamity in our me- 
tropolis, is a visitation upon the land for this among other sins. 
Of the sins of our country there is none other placed so pro- 
minently before the nations, at least none of which they form 
so correct an estimate, none with which we are so often and 
so justly reproached. The republican liberty of which we 
make so much boast and which is a distinguished blessing of 
God, has awakened the attention of all nations, and moved the 
indignation of the tyrants of the old world. Slavery presents 
so glaring a contrast to all our doctrines of liberty, and to all 
its enjoyments, and the number of the slaves is so great, 
amounting to millions, that the attention of the universe has 
been drawn to the subject. If it is true that the more public 
sins are, they are the more likely to be punished by Heaven, in 
a very public manner ; then, no one of all the sins of this nation 
is so signally the object of the divine judgments, as that of 

•lavery. ^. . 

It remains to be seen whether this stroke of the divme rod 
will be so improved as to avert other impending tokens of the 
indignation of Heaven. Hitherto there have been few indi- 
cations of a penitent submission to the rod. In all the ac- 
counts that we have read of this calamity, in the political jour- 
nals, we have observed but one allusion, and that a very slight 
one, to the hand of God in the conflagration. Those who 
feaf God and observe with attention the dispensations of his 
providence, will be humbled before him, and confess their 
own, and the nations sins, and pray for their pardon and refor- 
mation. Manj such there are undoubtedly in the land ; and 
it is chiefly for them that these pages are written, in the hiun- 
ble hope that they may be somewhat quickened in the duty of 



[45] 

self-abasement, and prayer to God to sanctify these judgments, 
and that the faith of the true friends of humanity may be 
strengihened to a firmer reliance on the promises of God, 
that *' he will arise and plead the cause of ihe poor and the 
needy." 

As to others who know not God and obey not the gospel, 
but yield themselves servants to unrighteousness, who enslav- 
ed by their own lusts, enslave their brethren, or plead for those 
who do, little else is expected from them than the usual cry of 
fanaticism, bigotry, incendiarism, which have been in all ages 
applied so liberally to those who plead for the truth, the hon- 
our of the government of the God of Israel. To all such it 
may be said, " mock not lest your bands be made strong." — 
" He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be 
suddenly destroyed and that without remedy." That many 
are exposing themselves to the danger of falling under these 
denunciations, is perfectly certain. In Congress efforts are 
made by slave-holders to prevent for ever, in the federal le- 
gislature, all discussion of the question of slavery, to bolt their 
doors against all petitions for the emancipation of the slaves in 
the District of Columbia, and to issue a declaration that con- 
gress has no power to interfere in behalf of the oppressed 
there. All these measures, they are attempting to carry not 
by argument, but by banter, threat and denunciation. The 
representatives from the north generally submit tamely to 
all this and shew little more spirit to resist them than 
the southern slave would his master. But the appearances 
at present indicate that the blighting influence of this evil 
will have a still more malignant effect on the liberty of the 
north. If southern slave masters succeed in sealing the lips, 
and enslaving the press on this subject, other encroachments 
will follow in rapid succession, until the last vestiges of liberty 
will be erased from the Magna Charta of the land. We trust 
they will not succeed, but we do not trust in man for this. 

Other judgments will follow if the oppressor persevere in 
outraging the rights of man. Already there is an Indian war, 
and we are threatened with a war between this country and 
Mexico, in which many of our citizens are even now engaged. 
War also with a great nation is at this moment, hanging over 
our heads and a mighty hostile armament hovering near our 
coasts. And, however just our cause may be as it regards the 
French empire, the storm which gathers and lowers in the hor- 
rifon, if it breaks on us, will be found charged with great pow- 
er of destruction. The language of Heaven in these dispen- 



SEP 21 1900 



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